Your Beast, My Beauty

Chapter 7

(Dipper pov)

I put the final book back on the shelf before I head out into the garden looking for Bill. I finally find him sitting on a fountain reading a book. "What you reading there?" I ask as I sit next to him.

He looks up at me as he closes the book. "It's nothing really." He tries to hide the book but I catch a glimpse of the title.

"Guinevere and Lancelot."

"Well actually, King Arthur and the Round Table. Knights, and men, and swords and things..."

"But still it's a romance. You told me that you despise romance novels. Said they're a bore."

"I know what I said. I just felt like I needed to change things up a little."

"I never thanked you for saving my life. So....thank you. For everything."

"Well I never thanked you... for not leaving me to be eaten by wolves." I smile softly but we both look towards the castle as we hear shouts and laughing coming from it.

"They sure know how to have a good time."

"They do indeed. Although they always stop whenever I enter the room."

"Me, too. The villagers say that I'm a "funny boy," but I don't think they mean it as a compliment."

"Why would they say a thing like that?"

"Because I'm different."

"What do you mean?"

"I was actually born in Paris. I didn't spend much time there, maybe a few months. After my mom and twin sister died, my dad moved us to the small village and we've stayed there ever since. I was never like anyone else in the village. My birthmark didn't really help things either."

"Birthmark?" I lift up my bangs showing him my birth mark and I watch as one of his hands gently traces it. "I've never seen anything like this."

I let my bangs fall back over my forehead and pull my hat back on. "I always hide it. Don't want people to.....to say that my dad ruined me.....he never did anything wrong except do his best to raise me all on his own."

"I'm sorry. Your village sounds terrible."

"I guess. It sounds almost as lonely as your castle." That earns a small smile from him.

"How about we run away?"

"What?"

"It wouldn't be for long, just a short while."

"But how would we do that?"

"Follow me and I'll show you." Taking my hand he leads me back into his castle and up the stairs to his room.

He takes out a giant book laying it on his bed. He opens it up and I see a map of the entire world.

"I never realized how big the world truly is....."

"Another little "gift" from the Enchantress... A book that truly allows you to escape. "

"How amazing." I quietly mutter under my breathe as my fingers trace the intricate designs on the pages of the book.

"It was her cruelest trick of all. The outside world has no place for a creature like me. But it can for you" He gently takes my hand and puts it on the map of the world in the book. "Think of the place you've most wanted to see. First, see it in your mind's eye. Now feel it in your heart."

I close my eyes and think of the one place that I have wanted to go all my life. When I open them I see that we're in a small one room house, a small loft showing a bedroom while there was two small cribs and a couch down here. Art supplies was scattered everywhere, the whole place looking like someone left in a hurry.

"Where did you take us?" I see Bill look out the window at the city.

"Paris."

"Oh, I love Paris. What would you like to see first? Notre Dame? The Champs- Elyses? No? Too touristy?"

I don't respond as I walk around the room running my hands over the broken furniture. It's heartreaking to see the home my dad had talked about so much to look like this.

".....it's much smaller then I thought it was...."

"This is where your family lived?" I give a small nod.

"This is the Paris of my childhood
These were the borders of my life
In this crumbling, dusty attic
Where an artist loved his wife"

I look at Bill, feeling tears in my eyes. "I thought that I would find an answer, here where his heart has always lived. An answer to why we just took me and left without looking back. Why he would take me to such a small minded village. But there are no answers here. Now I see it's empty and abandoned."

"Easy to remember
Harder to move on
Knowing the Paris of my childhood is gone"

Looking in one of the cribs I take out a locket. I sit on the couch as I open it, seeing inside it are baby pictures of me and my sister. "....Mabel....." In the picture of me, my dad is holding me. In the picture of my sister, my mom is holding her. "Mom...."

"What happened to your sister and mother?"

"I don't know. He would talk about what my mom was like and how excited he was about having twins. But he never told me why he left. Never said a word about what had happened to them besides that they died. No matter how much I pushed he never would tell me."

Bill picks up a black mask that has a long pointed nose. He looks at me seeing the confused look on my face. "Plague."

I feel hot tears going down my cheeks. "They got the plague? He....h-he took me to that village to keep me from getting it too...."

He puts the mask down as he sits down next to me. "I am sorry I ever called your father a thief."

"I want to go home." He takes my hand and when I open my eyes again we're back in his room.

I sink to my knees as the helpless sobs escape me. He kneels down with me wrapping his arms around me holding me to his chest. I numbly feel him put the ocket around my neck but I can't do anything but cry now knowing the fate of my mom and sister that I never even got to meet.